Powered (30 page)
Authors: Cheyanne Young
I take a sip from my bottle of orange Gatorade and sit on the floor between the boys.
“So …” Max says in an extraordinarily casual way as he taps away on the game controller. “We have a sister.”
A lump forms in the pit of my stomach. My mouth goes dry and I reach for my drink. I stare straight at the television. “Not for much longer.”
Max pauses the game. “What does that mean?”
My hands twist together, powered fingers intermingling with bandaged numb ones. “The examiners told me she ran away,” I begin, but Max interrupts me with, “She did. She scared off the Retrievers pretty quickly. I saw her standing against the wall when they finally took you off in a medic pod and when I looked for her again, she was gone. But it’s not like she had a MOD on her, so no one knows where she is.”
“They’ve sent trackers to find her,” I say.
Max’s eyebrows draw together as he looks at Evan. “Do you know anything else?”
Evan shakes his head. “I’ve told you all I know.”
“And what is that?” I ask.
Evan massages his left wrist. “I was interrogated after Aurora died. They asked me a million questions about your twin. I guess they thought I might have been connected with Felix and would know something. But I didn’t, of course.”
“Wait,” I hold out a hand. “Aurora’s dead?” Guess I shouldn’t be surprised after all. They’re going to kill my twin too.
Evan nods. “Nova snapped her neck. Right after she saved you.”
Stars fill my vision and all I’m doing is sitting here. I find myself straining to inhale, my power so high-strung it feels like it’ll burst out of my chest. “Nova did
what
?”
“She killed her. I know we’re against murder and all, but—” Evan tugs at his eyebrow and glances at Max. “It was kind of awesome.”
“Not that.” The words are sluggish as they leave my mouth. “The other thing.”
“She saved you? You don’t remember?”
I rock back on my knees, my fingers digging into my thighs. “I remember being depowered and thinking my life was over, and then I remember waking up in the medical ward. What do you mean she saved me? She was trying to kill me.”
Max shifts awkwardly in his seat. His power feels tense, hurt and angry all at the same time. Evan looks me in the eyes and takes my bad hand. “Nova pulled you out. She saved you.”
I toss the words around my mind, trying to make sense of them. “I don’t understand.”
“Join the club,” Max mutters.
Evan shrugs. “When you got sucked into the depowering machine, Max and I tried pulling you out but we couldn’t. Then she shoved past us, grabbed your shoulders, said she was going to regret doing it, and just pulled you out of the machine like it was no effort at all. That’s when I wrapped my shirt around your arm and you almost killed Aurora.”
“I remember that part,” I interject. Flashes of holding a metal sign over her neck come back me.
Evan continues, “You left Aurora and Max and I were at your side. Then we all kind of forgot about Nova as we were tending to you. I looked back just in time to see her snap Aurora’s neck.”
“Nova pulled me out,” I say, more to myself. “She saved me.”
He sucks in a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “She was stronger than Max and I combined.”
I shake my head, disbelief clouding my thoughts. “That’s not possible.”
“I think it’s because she’s your twin. If your power is doubled, then so is hers.” Evan keeps talking, using words over my realm of understanding, but I don’t hear any of it. The whole room blurs into nothingness. Breathing becomes harder. My mind is in a fog, too thick with emotions to make sense of anything around me. Nova saved me. She was sent to kill me and instead she saved me.
Max grabs my arm and shakes me back to reality. “Maci, say something.”
I shake my head as the room returns to normal and my vision clears. Max looks horrified as I shrug his hand off me and stand. “I’m going to find her.”
“Why?” Max yells, standing to his full height. The pain behind his eyes tells me I’m making the right choice. The choice he would make if he wasn’t so loyal to Hero rules.
Evan gnaws on his bottom lip. “You’re a Hero now. You can’t do this.”
“I don’t care about the freaking Hero rules. That is my sister. She saved me and she didn’t have to.” I grab my Gatorade bottle and down the rest of the drink in one gulp. “Now I’m going to save her.”
“Maci,” Max begins, but I ignore it, pushing past them and grabbing my Hero suit.
“Can’t this wait until you’ve thought out a plan?” Evan argues, following me to the door. “Even if you find her, what will you do? Twins aren’t accepted here. You could lose your Hero status.”
I hook my hands around the back of his neck and pull him close to me, kissing him on the lips. He kisses me back reluctantly then presses his forehead to mine. “They won’t let both of you live,” he whispers, gripping my face in his hands. “What exactly do you think you’ll do when you find her?”
I shrug as a smile spreads across my lips. “Guess I’ll figure it out.”
Many thanks to Felicia Morgan, Allison Renner, Emily Godwin, Nikki Godwin, Melissa Anderson, PT Dilloway and Christina Channelle for beta reading. Tons of thanks to my early readers and everyone to left me a review or will leave a review. Thanks to Shane Morgan for hosting the blog tour and for all the hard work she did to promote Powered.
To my editor Cynthia Shepp who is awesome in about a million ways. Kerry Sparks at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency helped me get this book into shape and I am super grateful for her time and kind words.
To Trudy Blough for being my first official fan. Readers like you are the reason I write!
Thanks to Brad Sypniewski and Kevin Williams for helping me brainstorm King City and figure out how Maci’s story would end. I appreciate all the ideas and encouragement, despite the fact that you guys frequently suggested I kill off my main character. That’s
so
not happening.
To Jamie for being the perfect big sister by offering unfailing support and encouragement in every single thing I set out to do.
The same goes to Susan Connally who is my cheerleader. Everyone needs a Susan in their life. But you can’t have this Susan because she’s taken.
And lastly, to Mom, Dad, Katie, Hallee and Chris, for being the best family a girl could ever ask for. You guys are all awarded Hero status.
Cheyanne is a native Texan with a fear of cold weather and a coffee addiction that probably needs an intervention. She loves books, sarcasm, nail polish and paid holidays. She lives near the beach with her family, one spoiled rotten puppy and a cat who is most likely plotting to take over the world.
Find Cheyanne on the web:
Twitter @NormalChey
www.Facebook.com/AuthorCheyanneYoung
Coming Mid 2014
The Second Book In The Powered Trilogy:
OVERPOWERED
After rescuing her twin sister Nova from a life of evil, Maci fears she’s made a huge mistake. As if she didn’t have enough trouble fitting in with her fellow Supers, Nova outshines Maci in personality and power.
In the midst of this one-sided sibling rivalry, humans are dropping dead from a powerful drug that originates in the underground tunnels of King City. Someone is a traitor and Maci wants to capture the villain before anyone else—especially Nova.
With Nova in the spotlight, Maci needs to set aside her jealousy before more humans die and the future of King City is changed forever.